


To Fill the Silence

by Kanthia



Series: I Found Hope In You [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Did Somebody Mention Art, Feels, M/M, Orgy, Spitroasting, Spoilers for Awakening, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-03-24 03:07:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13802085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanthia/pseuds/Kanthia
Summary: Xander raises his eyebrows, cocks his head in the direction of his bedchambers, and says, “I’ll have you.”





	1. In Windmire

The sexual appetites of Nohrians are nothing like those of Ylisseans. In Nohr you can have any kind of sex you want for the right price, unless you love someone -- then there’s a whole complicated process of courtship that stems from Windmere and is copied, endlessly and inelegantly, by artisans and landowners, all the way down to the peasantry. Laslow had learned the hard way that declaring one’s undying affection for a barmaid was not a great way to start a night, that romance in Nohr was a strange and difficult thing -- but if you just want a quick fuck, you’re best off saying it outright.

Granted, Laslow doesn’t have the most accurate picture of Ylissean culture, what with the apocalypse and all the grief afterwards, but to him declarations of love were a commonplace thing; you’d drunkenly announce it to a room full of strangers before going off to do your business somewhere private, so that the whole world might know that you loved someone, in case one or some or all of you died the next day. He’d had a hundred thousand spoken and shouted and whispered confessions that he collected like love letters and kept near to his heart, and most of them were from people who were probably dead.

Then there were his comrades -- well, that was a different kind of love, but love nonetheless: the way the pinched skin between Gerome’s eyes would soften at the moment of orgasm; the way Kjelle would pick him up and chuck him halfway across a barn and tear at her clothes with fire in her eyes; the way that Cynthia would burst into laughter when she came; the way that Brady teared up and insisted he was just _a little fuckin’ emotional, stop your gigglin’ you half-wit sonofabitch, I fuckin’ love you so much_. And Lucina -- Gods, Lucina -- the way she’d gaze up at him with a goofy little grin on her face, hazy and dreamlike, it almost made him glad for everything she’d suffered through.

But Nohrians -- stoic, straight-laced Nohrians who wouldn’t know the meaning of _apocalypse_ if it snuck up behind them and held a dagger to their throat -- they save love for particular people, and otherwise they prefer to not mince words.

So when Laslow finds Xander hunched over his desk for the fourth midnight in a row, looking weary and stressed, he has no qualms with placing the teapot aside and saying, “Milord, if I may speak freely?”

Xander sits up from his papers and turns to look at Laslow. Narrows his eyes, but the corners of his lips do not turn down. “You may.”

Gods if he isn’t a sight in the flickering candlelight, prominent cheekbones and gold hair proof that some nobility really does live in the blood.

“You’re working yourself to death, milord. Might you take a few hours to rest?”

“I’m not tired.”

“Relaxation, then. I can bring someone up from the harem.”

“Hm.” Xander spins around in his chair to fully face Laslow. Stares him up and down. From the corner of the room, in its sheath, Siegfried hums malevolently; Laslow is suddenly struck by the thought that he’s read Nohr wrong, and that he’s about to be messily parted from all of his flesh. Then Xander raises his eyebrows, cocks his head in the direction of his bedchambers, and says, “I’ll have you.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, I’ll have you, unless you feel otherwise. Use the washroom if you need to get ready.”

Laslow does not feel otherwise, thanks for asking. There’s an edge of something dangerous in the domineering tone of Xander’s voice, a cousin of Grima that is willing to play nice with humanity, and Gods but Laslow has never had sex with a prince before. He crosses the floor to Xander’s washroom and grabs the oil off the vanity.

He’s certainly thought about it -- sex with a prince, that is -- considered on more than one occasion the narrow taper of Owain’s waist in that ridiculous sorcerer’s getup, but they never got around to it.

\-- Besides, there’s nothing princely about Owain, not when you stand him next to Leo, or to Xander.

Nothing wrong about that, of course. Although, not the best train of thought to be having while trying to prepare oneself to be speared by a prince.

Before arriving in Nohr Laslow had only the faintest notion of how to stimulate a prostate. Not really worth the time and effort of lubing up your partner when you can get them off just as easily with a lap dance and a blow job. Here, though, where living through tomorrow is far more easily guaranteed, and there’s time to really get into someone --

 _Oh._ Halfway through breathing out he finds his prostate with two fingers, and he’d nearly forgotten what a nice feeling that could be. Sends a rush of heat right up his spine, the feeling not unlike a slow wank on a lazy morning after a hot meal, or a long kiss with a gorgeous stranger. Pulls out and oils his fingers up a little more, arches his back to get a good angle --

“-- Do you intend to keep me waiting all night?”

Laslow turns to get a full view of Xander standing in the doorframe, arms crossed, buck-naked. No god, not Grima or Naga nor any of the dragons they worshipped in Nohr or Hoshido, could conjure such an image: the crown prince robed in nothing but the splendour of his noble bearing, half-hard, idly trailing his eyes over his very unworthy retainer, who is three fingers buried deep.

“Not at all, milord.”

Xander takes two steps to cross the distance between them and takes Laslow’s wrist gently, removes the hand. Before Laslow can say otherwise he oils up his own fingers -- his sword hand, the hand that wields Siegfried, Nohr’s pride and glory -- and _Gods_ he has long fingers. Rests his free hand on Laslow’s hip like it belongs there. “Oh,” Laslow groans, taking in a deep breath. “Just -- just up a bit, to the left --” Lets it all out in one long _woosh_ , lets his head droop and his toes curl, when Xander finds his prostate and presses into it. Gods he’s good at this. Nohrians are obsessed with assholes; Xander is no exception, scissors his fingers while massaging Laslow like he’s done it his whole life -- and he probably has. Has anyone, noble or otherwise, ever topped him? The image of Severa in a strap-on springs, suddenly and unabashedly, to mind.

“You have an active imagination,” Xander says, and Laslow opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) to find that yes, he is hard. “ -- To bed?”

To bed, indeed. Xander’s bed is a thing of beauty, draped in black and violet silk with a sheer canopy; Laslow had dreamed of beds like this in his childhood. Xander is not a pragmatist, enjoys fine and beautiful things when he can have them: silk sheets, fine china, expensive teas, gorgeous bedmates. He arranges Laslow on his back on top of the sheets and climbs up to straddle him, fisting his cock, encouraging Laslow to do the same.

Now that he’s close enough to study Laslow takes the opportunity to really get a good look at him, the jut of his chin, the curl in his hair. Niles had once joked that the greatest secret in Nohr was on Xander’s face, the smattering of freckles across his nose, which Garon had never sported. One would expect a cavalier to be muscular about the thighs but Xander is beautifully sculpted no matter where you look -- broad in the shoulders, trim at the waist. Beyond his regular swordsmanship and horsemanship he’s fastidious about his diet and his daily weight-training, taking time and patience and calories to carve muscles that serve no purpose other than adoration or intimidation. He sees his size and shape as a reflection of his country, and it shows in the way his abdominal muscles jut out, the way his Adonis’ Belt cuts a line so neatly from his hips to his cock.

Xander gently lifts Laslow’s pelvis, offers him a pillow for support. Chivalrous.

“You’re staring,” he says. “I’ve never laid with someone as fearless as you.”

“You’re a feast for the eyes, milord.”

“Hm.” Xander’s mouth twitches up at the corners. “You’re gained weight.”

“Oh?”

Xander grips Laslow’s hips and lines himself up. He has callouses down his palms and between his thumb and index fingers, the hands of a swordsman. “When you arrived in Nohr you were gaunt. It remains even now, but Nohr has been kind to you. I suspect you were starving much of your childhood.”

“Milord, I --”

“-- How petulant we must seem to you.” He presses in, a firm but inexorable pressure that is in so many ways his signature. “We gripe about the bounty in Hoshido, but there is food on our tables every night.” He bottoms out with a grunt. “There we are. How is that?”

Gods, it’s good. Laslow makes a noise he hopes communicates the feeling of a prince’s cock on his prostate and the weight of a prince’s thoughtful words on his ego and the way he makes everything Laslow’s survived worth it for that one moment, lying on his back pinned under gold hair and pale skin and indescribable kindness, that hazy sort of pleasure that goes right up his spine and fries his brain. Xander must take it as an _okay_ because he immediately pulls out and slams back in with the force of a dragon, grips Laslow and sets a brutal pace, and when Laslow cants his hips up to match the rhythm Xander bites his lower lip and grins almost _feral_ and Laslow, when he can think at all, thinks that he would follow this man to the ends of the earth.

Later, when Laslow is done and Xander is finished the prince calls for a plate of bread and a raclette of melted cows’ cheese and an outrageously fine cabernet, props himself up in bed with a book while Laslow contemplates the high prince of going to sleep without first bathing.

“Milord is a conversationalist,” he says instead, while he tries to work up the gumption to get his feet onto the ground.

“So I’ve been told.” The High Prince of Nohr wears spectacles. It’s an absurdly domestic look on him, and Laslow could not possibly find one person more attractive, never mind the eighty published and scores of unpublished bawdy poems and ballads written specifically about Camilla’s breasts. “I assume that idle chatter during sex is not a common practice in your homeland.”

“No bed-chatter is ever idle.”

“Hm.”

“But no, it’s not my style. I like to let my body do the talking.”

“A man who does not fear silence, nor death.”

“-- Milord?”

“I prattle to fill the silence.” Xander removes his readers, puts down his book, rolls over so he is draped over Laslow’s prone body. Laslow had understood Niles wrong; Nohr’s greatest secret is not the freckles on Xander’s nose but the enormity of the sadness in his eyes. “I had a friend, a lesser noblewoman, years ago. She’d come to my room and I’d strip her naked and we’d have our ways with each other, and then we would talk for hours. I considered courting her. Then she was called to quell a rebellion in a border town and died on the end of a spear.”

Laslow swallows hard around a lump in his throat. Xander drives a knee between his legs and damn it, he’s ready to go again. “She lives on in you.”

“I’d like to take you to Cyrkensia,” Xander says instead of responding, easing two fingers back into Laslow.

“Whatever milord desires.”  
  
“I’ve been invited to perform in an orgy.”

Laslow chokes on his spittle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, sitting down to write porn: and then laslow will consider the psychological ramifications of growing up during the apocalypse


	2. In Cyrkensia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's an orgy on stage in the opera house in cyrkensia for the viewing pleasure of a very select audience, held once a month at a secret date and time with a rotating cast and crew. this month has a particularly exciting guest performance.
> 
> rated e for Extremely nsfw

The monthly orgy on the opera house stage is meant as art, a spectacle with contextual meaning, so when Laslow is manhandled into a yukata he decides he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s offered an oral aphrodisiac and a jar of lube, both of which he gratefully accepts.  
  
“Do not be alarmed,” Xander murmurs, as he fingers Laslow open backstage. Xander is likewise dressed in a midnight-purple yukata. “This is neutral territory. We all know better than to start a fight.”

“There’s something in the air, milord.” A warning, perhaps, or a promise. Xander leans over Laslow and covers his cock with his hand, thumbs the slit gently, whispers, _show them what you showed me. Show them a man who is good friends with death._

That _something in the air_ is High Prince Ryoma in a crimson Nohrian dressing-robe, flanked by a retinue of stern-eyed ninja, the Hoshidans cautiously making their way onto the far side of the stage. There’s an orchestra in the pit striking up a breathy little tune in three-fourths time in a style that is neither Nohrian nor Hoshidan, and a variety of things scattered about the stage: beds, bedrolls, rose petals, plum blossom petals, prophylactics, sex aids of an astounding variety. Behind him two Nohrian soldiers, perhaps succumbing to the legendary power of Nestrian aphrodisiacs, decide to forgo the artistic border-crossing and start undressing each other; otherwise, there’s a strained awkwardness that pervades the theatre, each side sizing the other up.

Laslow has never been so close to Ryoma, had only heard rumours and seen soldiers return wounded with the signature many-branched scar. He had slept once with a wyvern rider who had ended up on the wrong side of Raijinto and had whispered of what it felt like to have one’s heart stop, how death leapt into their throat with the sour taste of iron and rust; before them, Ryoma bends down to whisper something into the ear of the ninja at his right, who nods gravely and undoes the belt at the prince’s waist.

“Prince Xander of Nohr,” Ryoma bellows, his Common tinged with an accent that, oddly, reminds Laslow of the monks in Regna Ferox. He shouts something in Hoshidan, shrugs off his robe -- the size of him shocking, standing firm and proud at attention -- then adds, “Let us be joined tonight not in battle.”  
  
“Prince Ryoma of Hoshido,” Xander shouts back, stern and austere and patient, still dressed. “There will be no grief between us tonight, on my honour.”

Beyond the bright stage lights a crowd applauds, slicing through the tension. They want a show. The orchestra picks up the tempo. Laslow steps forward and undoes his obi, taps his toes to warm himself into the beat, and, mindful of the open yukata exposing him to the audience, starts to dance.

In Ylisse he’d danced among the dead and dying in infirmaries and graveyards, rallied broken spirits in the heart of the night and, on one occasion, danced privately for Lucina when she’d all but lost faith. His is a dance that brings small happinesses to bereft soldiers. He cannot reinvigorate the exhausted like his mother did; his dance is only the smallest joy against the hardship of living through another day, the light of hope that never dies, the reason one might push through the misery of waking up the next morning.

There had been a moment -- yes, he and Lucina had been overlooking a village decimated by Risen -- when he’d come to realize that a smile is sometimes the only safeguard against despair, and the only thing one can ever really fight for is the hope that tomorrow will come.

And when he finishes, launching himself through a verse he’d choreographed himself that he’d named (in a fit of passion) _for my mother, memento mori,_ he twists and lands in fourth position facing the audience, strikes a pose with his arms in the air and finds himself sweating and grinning, bowing to raucous applause. Things are thrown onstage: roses, coins, smallclothes, condoms. Gods, he’s hard; the aphrodisiac must have kicked in. He turns to see if he’s had any effect on his comrades on stage --

\-- And finds his wrist trapped in Ryoma’s grip.  
  
“That’s enough,” Ryoma mutters so quietly that Laslow thinks he might have imagined it, grabs Laslow’s chin with his free hand, pulls their lips together.

Nohrians do not kiss during sex; it’s considered exceptionally rude to kiss someone you have no intention of courting. Ryoma kisses with force and pressure, tastes of mulled wine and static electricity. He kisses like a man who knows what he likes and is good at what he does. It’s been far too long since Laslow has kissed someone like that, his body instinctively recalling the feeling of a desperate fuck on the eve of a terrible battle, and when Ryoma reaches down to palm his cock Laslow makes a noise at the back of his throat that would scandalize even Niles.  
  
“You’re not Nohrian,” Ryoma murmurs, breaking the kiss. He leans forward until Laslow is forced to kneel, then lie on his back, and someone -- Laslow isn’t sure whom -- has placed a bedroll under him. Ryoma places his hands on either side of Laslow’s head and leans in dangerously close, their noses almost touching. “I don’t know where you come from, but Xander is not good enough to have you.”  
  
“That’s -- ah, that’s Lord Xander to you.”  
  
“Hm. And do your countrymen know how to use their mouths for anything other than snide remarks, or shall I turn you over and show you and your Xander how a Hoshidan really makes use of an asshole?”

He’s so handsome, the way the light plays on his eyes, the curtain of hair falling around him that seems to obscure the entire world; and he’s so heavy, so tall and broad and thick with muscle, so evenly tanned, that many-branched scar like lightning in deep red lancing up his left arm and over his chest; he radiates danger and control and self-assurance. Laslow’s drunk just on the thought of being fucked by the enemy of his liege on centre stage in front of a crowd of nobility.

“I’ve never blown a Hoshidan before,” Laslow returns, because the easiest way to throw someone off guard is to shoot from the hip; and besides, this is Cyrkensia, and Ryoma ought to be treated to a little Nohrian-style flirting. “If you’ll let me?”

Ryoma blinks twice, then a wolfish grin tugs up at the corners of his lips. “How lewd.” He sits back on his haunches, gestures at his cock.  
  
It’s hard to tell what someone likes without really getting to know them first, and Ryoma doesn’t seem interested in giving any directions; Laslow supposes he has people who know him well, retainers or pleasure-servants or both. A challenge, then, with Xander’s dignity on the line, and Laslow certainly knows how to suck a dick so well that it can make someone forget the inevitability of their own death.  
  
Laslow works his mouth full of spit. He looks away from the crowd and is rewarded by a gloriously unbound pair of breasts -- one of Ryoma’s retainers, no doubt, kneeling to hand him a jar of lubricant, before turning to the redhead beside her.

“How rude of you to seduce a man in the middle of a performance,” Xander says from behind Laslow. Flips up his yukata and spreads his asscheeks, presses gently with two lubed fingers. Ryoma’s response is lost in a groan as Laslow gets to work.

 _Gods_ he is unworthy, just the son of a travelling dancer who’d wormed his way into the company of nobility by chance and the machinations of an old mad god. Laslow leans in with an open mouth and a well-practiced tongue and the insistence of Ryoma’s hands on his head and his cheek, powerful, hot. He takes the tip into his mouth and spreads his hands on the perfectly hairless juncture of Ryoma’s legs -- Laslow is struck by the image of someone, the redhead perhaps, kneeling there with a razor and infinite patience -- and sucks gently, rubbing circles with the pads of his thumbs.

He is a _sight_ when Laslow angles his eyes up, cheeks red, eyes dark, staring straight over Laslow to Xander despite the deep kiss he’s sharing with the brunette who’d handed Laslow the lube. Driven by whim or whimsy Laslow angles his head and takes a little more in, letting the tip rub against the roof of his mouth; Ryoma sucks in a deep breath and grips his hair a little tighter; the fingers in Laslow’s ass, which he had somehow, absurdly, forgotten about, slide out with a heavenly friction. Xander leans in close and presses himself in.

The orchestra is hitting a seemingly impossible tempo; the crowd is losing its mind: High Prince Ryoma and Crown Prince Xander at centre stage spitroasting some heretofore unknown knight or retainer or nobleman, two nations joined in coitus, the princes staring into one another’s eyes with fire and lust and an unspoken dialogue between them that is not hatred or anger but something else; the air is thick with it. Laslow feels the challenge thrumming in his blood, hot and heady as Xander grips his hips and drives into him and Ryoma tugs his hair and Laslow works on Ryoma, bobbing his head as far as he can manage, pulling the glory of Hoshido against the inside of his mouth like war is a game that can be ended in a single evening with one devastating bout of sex.

Laslow comes first, feels himself tighten up with little warning, blows his load into the hands of that stern-eyed redhead ninja who, as it turns out, can deliver an extraordinary handjob without the recipient even noticing. He sucks in hard at the sensation and Ryoma pulls himself out, breaking his kiss with the brunette long enough to bark something in Hoshidan; the redhead drops his hands and cants his hips up to offer his asshole to his prince.

Xander, damn his kindness, pulls out as well. Rolls Laslow over onto his back. Boneless in the afterglow of a terribly good orgasm, Laslow can’t help but let a grin pull at his mouth as his prince leans over him and wipes with a thumb at the moisture clinging to his lip.

“You did well,” Xander says, his quiet voice somehow deafening over the orchestra, whose dizzying tempo has finally started to slow.  
  
“It was for you, milord,” he returns, and Xander sighs and comes all over Laslow’s most unworthy chest.

The string section hits its final note. The applause that follows is ear-splitting. The throng of onlookers cannot contain itself, crying and cheering and someone is (half-jokingly?) shouting _encore, encore_ . Xander helps Laslow to his feet; Laslow calls on the muscle memory from a lifetime ago to retie his yukata and maintain some semblance of dignity; from the pit, the conductor is beckoning to him. Xander nudges him forward with a hand on his lower back. Laslow stumbles forward to the edge of the stage as the conductor hoists himself up beside him, takes his hand and holds it up for the crowd, and the applause surges for the man who, with nothing but his mother’s dance and the unbridled joy of being alive, had driven two princes to sustain one another’s company long enough to put on the show of a lifetime.  


* * *

 

“You’re welcome to take the rest of the night off,” Xander says, later, reading by candlelight in bed as Laslow, now properly dressed in an outfit befitting a Nohrian soldier, finishes settling his prince into the Lord’s chambers in the local inn -- the entirety of which has been set aside, of course, for Nohr and his entourage. “I imagine you’d enjoy being the toast of the town for once in your life.”

“Milord is cruel. I could be the toast of any town any night I wish.”  
  
Xander laughs. He has the rich baritone of a man who truly enjoys the rare genuine reason to laugh. Such an authentic reaction reminds Laslow of Lucina and he is hit, suddenly and without warning, with a wave of homesickness. Without meaning to his face falls; Xander’s does, as well.  
  
“I did not intend --”  
  
“-- No, I was caught by a stray thought.” She would never want him feeling sorry on her behalf. Then, spinning nostalgia into boldness -- “If I could have a request for tonight, Milord.”  
  
“Speak freely.”  
  
“I’d have you.”

“Hm?”  
  
“If I could have anyone tonight, I’d have you. -- If you’d have me.”

Xander’s expression softens. “How could I refuse a request from the man who brought Nestra to a standing ovation?” He puts the book down on the nightstand, removes his readers and sets them atop the novel. “Come here, Laslow.”

He does, shucks his boots and climbs up onto the bed, plants his knees between Xander’s legs -- though hidden by the bedsheets, he can feel his lord’s interest stirring -- and lifts his arms to allow Xander to lift off his doublet, then unbutton and untuck and remove his shirt, then push down at his leggings to palm, open-handed and gentle, at Laslow’s cock.  
  
“I’ll take my time with you tonight,” he says. “Perhaps show you, in my clumsy and imperfect way, what we all felt while watching you dance. And in return, I’d like you to give to me what you gave to Ryoma.”

“Whatever milord wishes.”

“You’re like water,” he says, sitting up straighter to get a better angle. From the nightstand drawer he produces another jar of lube and thumbs tenderly at Laslow’s asshole, still soft and pliant from the show earlier. “To one who sees you only on the surface, you could seem -- simple, and easily manipulated. But there is a depth to you that goes unseen, and a force to you that cannot be countered by anything less than the most determined will.”

“Milord is -- ah --” There’s the breach, the pleasant burn that promises a good fuck to come. “-- Milord is too kind.”

“Come now, Laslow.” He pulls his thumb out, slides out of the sheets to sit noble and glorious, in the nude like some fresco of old. With his legs spread like that, pinning Laslow between his thighs as he lubes up his cock -- in form, much like a man; in countenance, how like a king! “Do you take me for some common flatterer?”

“Never.”

He smiles. “Good. Take off those leggings, Laslow.”

It’s an _excellent_ fuck. Xander maneuvers Laslow’s legs to straddle him, grabs his hips, drives up into him with a leisurely tempo but with enough force to bear him heavenward with each thrust. Laslow has never had sex like that, slow and luxurious, jerking himself to that same rhythm; his orgasm building in him steadily like liquid gold until he can hardly wrap himself around a single thought other than the absurd immediacy of the moment and the unbearable tension below his stomach, the bead of sweat on Xander’s cupid’s bow, the grace in his closed eyes and unfurrowed brow.

Then Xander’s eyes flutter open and something changes; he reaches to Laslow’s neck and guides him to look down and kisses him.

And oh, it’s glorious. Xander kisses earnest and sincere and deep, less like the prince nailing his prostate with every thrust, more like a man in love. Laslow groans into his mouth and comes, feels Xander come in him molten and heavy, and Xander presses forward until Laslow is on his back, still joined, still kissing him.

They separate for air, still close enough that their noses almost touch. Laslow blinks and feels moist in the eyes. Xander reaches up and wipes the tears away.  
  
“The night is still young,” he says, his smile gentle and his cock soft and warm in Laslow. “Do you have any other requests of me, Laslow?”

“If I recall, you did ask for something in return, Milord.”

And it is a long night, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (bob the drag queen voice) did somebody mention art?


End file.
